From its beginning in 1889, ManchesterCollege has prepared teachers for the
nation’s public schools.Its first efforts centered on preparing
eighth grade graduates for teaching in rural and
small town schools, with 12-week summer courses in Manchester’s Normal
School. The summer Normal School was quite popular,
drawing as many as 534 students to campus by summer,
1927.

And from its
beginning, the College and the
North Manchester schools worked together
to ensure that prospective teachers had observations
and hands-on experiences with school children.

In 1908, that collaboration
suddenly intensified.The IndianaState Teacher Training Board
informed the College that it would have to
have its own elementary school on campus to retain
state approval for its teacher preparation program.According to the January 9, 1908
North
Manchester Journal, Professor Crouch from the
College met with the local school board at City Hall
with a proposal.If part of grades one through four could be
transferred from the Central Ward building, along
with two teachers, the College would provide
suitable rooms and adequate equipment for them on
the College grounds.The College would form a model Training
School, demonstrating excellent teaching for the
students and community and meeting State
requirements for the College’s teacher education
program.

Fortunately for the College, the school board
was struggling with overcrowded schools and the
proposal appeared to be a good solution to its
problem.On January 16, 1908,
The North
Manchester Journal reported that the school
board and College had entered into a contract.The College would provide two appropriate
elementary school classrooms and supplies for them,
the school corporation would provide two teachers,
parents could decide whether to send their children
to this new school, and
enrollment would be restricted to 15 children in
each of grades 1-4, with the new school under the
supervision of the town’s superintendent of schools.The contract was to be good for three years,
with a possible extension of two more years.

After the contract was signed, the College
moved ahead with all due speed.Two classrooms were fitted out in College
Hall (Bumgerdner Hall),
at the east end of the present
AdministrationBuilding.Many Normal School students were on Manchester’s campus by the
mid-term opening of classes on April 13, with others
joining them at the beginning of the 12 week Normal
Summer School session on May 26.They soon had access to students in the new
Training School, which opened on June 10, 1908.

The new school was to be open for 48 weeks
each year.It’s unclear how long that rigorous schedule
survived, but an advertisement in the May 15, 1913
North
Manchester Journal recruited Summer Normal
School students with the promise of work with
children in the Training School.
There didn’t
seem to be any recruitment for these children, so
they may have been continuing their 48 weeks of
study. Parents
were pleased to have their children out of the
basement of the CentralWardBuilding and taught by teachers who were graduates of
the StateNormal School at Terre Haute.Teachers seeking licenses were pleased to
observe in the campus school,
then discuss their observations the following
day with their professor.And the College was so pleased to have this
unique model school on campus that it featured the
school in advertisements for the College.The state was also pleased; it granted
accreditation of all teacher education programs at
the College on April 9, 1909.

The new campus school housed
two grades in each classroom all through its career.This gave new teachers a realistic view of
classroom management in a pattern that was found in
many Hoosier schools at that time.ManchesterCollege also had a country training
school, with grades one through six in a single
classroom, from at least 1909 to 1913. Very little
information can be found about this school, although
the August 25, 1910
Journal
listed Miss Muchmore,
the teacher at the Country Training School, as one
of Chester Township’s teachers for the coming year.
The May 15,
1913 ad mentioned previously said Esther Shively had
taught the CountryTraining School
for the preceeding three
years.
The location of that school is unknown.

New endeavors often require
adjustments.In the second year of its existence, the
Training School offered a class for grade 6-7
students at the Central Ward Building, located where
the present town library stands, in addition to its
on-campus Training School.This arrangement appeared to last for just
the one school year.In the September 8, 1910
North
Manchester Journal, new boundaries were drawn
for North Manchester’s schools, and students north
of a particular line were now required to attend the
North Ward School, the new name for the College
Training School.By Fall 1911, and
perhaps a year earlier, there were three elementary
classrooms on the College campus, housing grades
1-6.
The grade 1-6 pattern continued until the school
closed.

Manchester
College: The First
Seventy-Five Years included a 1912 letter from
Charles Greathouse,
following a visit from state inspectors from the
Indiana State Superintendent of Public Instruction.They were impressed with what they saw at
Manchester College, writing that “Adequate courses
of study are being carried out in the educational
department, complete records of students are on
file, training schools both town and country under
good supervision are being maintained, and the
letter and spirit of the law are being complied
with.”

The town of North Manchester still had crowded schools, in spite of the
relief the
NorthWardSchool provided.In the fall of 1912, the CentralSchoolBuilding housed grades 1-4 and 7-12.Grade 1-6 students were also taught at the
West Ward and North Ward schools, according to the
September 5, 1912
Journal.In the fall of 1915, Central had just grades
1–2 and 7–12, with the other two elementary schools
continuing to serve grades 1-6.(Journal,
August 12, 1915)

It’s unclear as to when or how
the 48-week Training School schedule was carried
out.
There was a June 3, 1915
North
Manchester News notice of a summer school for
children at the College, with classes for grades 1,
2, 5, and 6 meeting for three weeks and grades 3, 4,
7, and 8 meeting for the following three weeks.The ad seems to be recruiting new students
for the summer school.During the following summers, summer school
was held most, if not all, years.It took place in varying configurations –
sometimes for just grades 1-3, other times for all
students through the 8th grade, sometimes
for as little as two weeks, other times for as many
as six weeks.But one thing didn’t vary; growing numbers of
Normal School students used the summer school
heavily for the observation and practice teaching
required by the College and State.Smaller numbers of pre-service teachers who
studied during the College year used North Ward
classrooms in a similar way.

Events at North Ward were so
unremarkable that the chatty local papers rarely
mentioned the school.The February 20, 1916
North
Manchester News reported that North Ward (only)
was closed for two weeks because of the number of
cases of scarlet fever in the north end of town.The children were quarantined, along with
their mothers, while the three school rooms were
fumigated. The October 7, 1918
North
Manchester News indicated that all schools in
town were closed for four weeks because of the flu
epidemic that swept across the state; three College
students died, but apparently all younger students
survived.And a November 15, 1919 journal entry in the
College’s yearbook, Aurora,
said there had been a “wholesale whipping in the
Training School,” with no cause mentioned.Perhaps the new teachers were learning
discipline techniques?

North Ward was clearly
integrated into the public schools in town.Its teachers used the State curriculum and
the State-approved textbooks, just as the other
schools did. Teachers
hired by the North Manchester Schools circulated
between all of the schools to teach music and art.
Local
newspapers listed its teachers each fall, along with
the list of teachers in the other public schools.1923
News Journal articles tell of field days between
the three elementary schools, North Ward, West Ward,
and Central.However, enrollment between the three schools
differed.In 1922 North Ward had 83 elementary
students, West Ward had 147, and Central had 29
(only first and second grades met at Central that
year, along with grades 7-12).

One notable event did occur at North Ward.During 1920, workers attached the two
original ManchesterCollege buildings, the 1889 College or
Bumgerdner Hall and the
1896 BibleBuilding, to form a large administration
and classroom building.The September 2, 1920
North
Manchester News said the Training School and the CollegeAcademy (a high school sponsored by the
College) would be moved out of this building and
into the 1915 Science Hall.This move likely occurred in the fall of
1920, although the first printed confirmation of the
move came in a 1921-22
College
Bulletin.Its description of College buildings added
the information that the chemistry department met in
the basement of the Science Hall, “Training Rooms”
were on the second floor, and the Academy was on the
third and fourth floors.People who studied in this building in the
early grades remember a playground at the north side
of the building, complete with a slide and swings
and “a forest” on beyond.They also indicated that the southeast
classroom of the ScienceBuilding housed the first and second
grade, the third and fourth grades met in the
southwest classroom, and the fifth and sixth grades
had classes in the northwest classroom.The northeast classroom was remembered as the
music room.Each room was appropriately furnished with
school desks, with small chairs for recitation
between those desks and the front chalk boards.One former student remembers tables instead
of desks in the first and second grade classroom.

North Manchester was growing and there was construction
all around town in the
mid-1920’s.In February of 1926, a new 12-grade
CentralSchool was completed after
the old one had basically been condemned by the
State.
The January 31, 1927
News Journal
pointed out that the College was growing, too,
and it needed all the rooms on campus for its
expanding enrollment and programs.The January 19, 1928
News Journal
was even more to the point: “…while the College has
no disposition to force the school from its
buildings, yet it is generally understood that it
would be agreeable to have them removed, and at the
same time there are a great many patrons who feel
that their children could be better served in a
building separate and away from the College grounds.Under the new arrangement the College would
continue to pay a part of the teaching expense,
using the (new) school for training teachers much as
in the past.”

In 1929 a new elementary school was built for
North Manchester’s children.Thomas Marshall, said to be named by the
North Ward students, opened in September 1929 and
took in all former North Ward and CentralSchool elementary students.
Manchester College Bulletins had listed the
North Ward teachers as members of the Education
Department faculty for years; now they listed many
of the teachers in North
Manchester.According to the May 28, 1931
News Journal,
Manchester College paid $5000 a year to the North
Manchester schools and to some individual teachers,
for their work with the College pre-service
teachers, a practice also reported in the May 2,
1932 North
Manchester News..The College students still used the town
schools heavily for both observation and practice
teaching, although after a few years the long lists
of teachers in the
Manchester
College Bulletin stopped.Most likely, College financial support for
the Manchester schools stopped at about the same
time.

Manchester College still needed practice
experiences for the summer Normal School students,
and so the College continued funding and
administering summer schools for local children,
even after the North Ward School was closed in 1929.
These summer schools were generally five weeks long.The May 20, 1937
News Journal
indicated that the 1937 summer school at Thomas
Marshall was for grades 1 – 8 and was administered
and supervised by three local teachers employed by
the College, although it was actually taught by 20
practice teachers studying at the College.

The last College-sponsored
summer school took place at Thomas Marshall during
the summer of 1939, with 138 children enrolled and
16 Normal School student teachers handling their
morning-only classes.Twenty-six four and five year-olds attended a BibleSchool at Thomas Marshall at the same
time, taught by the town’s Ministerial Association.At this point, the State ended teacher
licensing through Normal Schools and people who
aspired to be teachers had to enroll as regular
college students for at least two years.ManchesterCollege’s need for summer school classes
for practice teaching ended, resulting in the
closing of these schools.

On October 6, 2007, a reunion
was held in the 1915 Science Hall, formerly the NorthWardSchool and now the College’s CommunicationBuilding, to be razed in 2008.Six people who had studied at North Ward as
children attended the reunion.They were delighted to see each other,
reminisced about old school mates and teachers, and
expressed their appreciation for their elementary
school years on Manchester’s Campus in the Training School / NorthWardSchool.While records are incomplete at best, North
Ward served children and new teachers for 21 years.Summer schools continued the training school
tradition for another 10 years.Perhaps this article and the more extensive
notes which underlie it will help those days to be
remembered.

Jo Ann
Schall, November 7, 2007

Sources Used:

Aurora
1913 -1932

A Century of
Faith, Learning, and Service.Timothy K. Jones.ManchesterCollege,
1989.